As Miss Brown explained more information about Genesis everyone in the class gave her their complete and undivided attention, well almost everyone.
John alone sat in the back corner, invisible to Miss Brown who did not even care if he was present or not, looking out the window lost in thought as he considered his plans for after school.
After the initiation he planned to sneak out of school early, no one would care or miss him anyway and heard over to a local building site he had been helping out at recently.
It was illegal within all the races for those still before adulthood to work any kind of job, this was one of the policies created alongside the Genesis project.
Back then the five races believed that once the young came of age to enter Genesis, they would have to fight in endless wars so they passed the order that while still young, children could enjoy their childhood though they still had to go to school.
It was only after this and the other policies had come into effect that Tia changed Genesis into what it was today, although many of the policies had changed and been updated to reflect this, the one about children not being allowed to work had never been updated.
While John and his different employers he worked for knew that it was illegal they did not really care because chances are no one would do anything about it since the city council already turned a blind eye to John and pretended he did not exist.
Plus, since everyone loved being in Genesis so much the employers always needed more workers and John was a hard worker, though they paid him under the table and at a much lower rate than a normal working adult John needed the money to eat so he made no complaints.
Eventually Miss Brian stopped rambling about the information everyone needed to know and spoke.
"Alright everyone, orderly make your way over to the gym and join your fellow students."
All the students hurriedly got up and started moving towards the gym with John being the last to leave the classroom.
He was in no rush to reach the gym, since the initiation would take place from oldest to youngest it was a given that John would be last.
As he reached the gym, he moved to a back corner behind everyone else before looking around.
In the middle of the gym there were twenty of the training pods the school students used to practice their magical and martial skills and also for when duels took place between students.
These twenty pods were in four rows of five pods each and in front of each pod was a desk.
Several different people stood around each pod, John recognized some of the school officials, however there also seemed to be scientists monitoring the pods and government officials sitting at the desks.
Placed around each of the pods were three meditation mats that people with magical abilities used to focus and train their magic.
They were there to allow the training pods to connect to the magic that encompasses the world, the training pods normally only ran off electricity and used Wi-Fi to connect to each other.
However, because they needed to link to Tia so that she could register the students as new Genesis users the meditation mats would be used by government officials with magical power as a link between the pods and Tia.
This was the main reason a whole school year was forced to wait until the last student turned eighteen, it was expensive and a lot of work to organize this, only the rich and powerful of the world could afford the cost and manpower to initiate their children when they came of age.
Once all the students had entered, a government official stepped forward and addressed the eager students.
"Good morning students I am Frank Hargreaves, I will be the one in charge and overseeing your initiation today."
"The process is relatively simple for you students, when we call your name step toward the pod we indicate and hand over your student ID to the official waiting there."
"After that sit inside, relax and wait for the pod to activate and begin your initiation."
"Once Tia registers you and allows you to leave, exit the pod and proceed to the desk in front to receive your access band and that's it."
"Let's begin, Mark Jacob's step forward."
And so, the initiation began, one by one students who had their names called stepped forward, passed over their student ID and entered the pod.
Each meditation mate now had an individual meditating on it as they helped link it to Tia
Each student spent about five minutes at most in the pods before climbing out and proceeding to the desk to receive their access bands that they put on their wrists with large smiles.
With three hundred students it took about two and a half hours to get through them and finally John's name was called last.
"John Michaels."
As John stepped towards the indicated pod his fellow students started to whisper in not so quiet voices.
"Finally, ratshack huh."
"About time, he kept us waiting for the initiation and now he keeps us waiting before we can enter."
The scientists and government officials who heard this raised their eyebrows in slight surprise.
It was not their first time doing the initiation and they knew the last person always got some insults because the others had to wait for them, however they had never heard anyone being called ratshack before.
As John reached the pod, he handed his student ID over to the government official and climbed inside, he settled in the seat as the lid closed over him plunging him into darkness, a few small lights came on to give some illumination but that was all.
As John waited, he began to think how pointless and how much of a waste of time this was, he could be working and making money right now so he could eat tonight.
Eventually he drifted off into a sleep that the pod induced and the next thing he saw was pure whiteness, nothing was there except a white void that went on forever.
Almost immediately a strange yet beautiful woman appeared before him.